Sunday, March 28, 2010

As visitors to my Facebook page already know, I had a really good time on our long weekend in L.A. a week or so ago. I won't recap the boring details but I thought I'd share a few of the photos I took. I've always been really interested in architecture and design (until my senior year in high school, I thought I was going to be an architect) and these photos show some of the iconic places that we visited.

Our first day there, we went to Hollywood Blvd:

- The First National Bank Building on the northeast corner of Hollywood and Highland was built in 1927 and until 1932 was the tallest building in Hollywood. It was designed by the architectural firm Meyer and Holler, who also designed Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Egyptian Theatre.

- Underneath the Manhattan Beach Pier - numerous film scenes made near this pier (Falling Down, Point Break, Tequila Sunrise)

- picked up Michelle's mom from the Union Station train depot in downtown L.A. Blade Runner, Speed, Italian Job, Drag Me to Hell all used this station as a backdrop. The interior of the station is fantastic with Art Deco lighting and decorations.

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Speaking of modernist architecture and design, I attended a screening of Visual Acoustics, a documentary of Julius Shulman, at the Phoenix Art Museum today. Shulman is the preeminent architectural photographer and has documented all of the most famous modernist architects including Wright, Richard Neutra, Frank Gehry, etc. This was a great film. You would think it would have only attracted a few nerdy architecture students, but the film room was packed (probably 500 people). His life and photographs do a great job of documenting 20th century architecture, especially in SoCal.

lol. I live in Glendale, AZ ... a suburb. Suburbs in general do not feature inspiring architecture. I'm going to try and seek out a lot of the modernist and some of the older architecture here in Phoenix and take some pics. Amazingly, in 16 years here, I've never been to Taliesen West and I'm a huge Wright fan. There are numerous other Wright designed buildings. Plus a lot of mid-century modern houses.